MASON DISCOVERING BANKNOTE DOTS
By Kim Pilic

Forward Steps Mobility was delighted to receive a recent communication from Leanne Davey in Melbourne, further to her grandson Mason’s home-schooling Braille learning project. A number of months ago, during the initial phase of COVID lockdown, Forward Steps Mobility posted some Braille learning sheets for children’s learning opportunities. Leanne took the time to explore these with Mason, as part of his home schooling projects. The below text conveys Leanne’s sheer delight in observing Mason’s recent discovery of tactile dots on Australian banknotes. This is truly a delightful read –
“Thank you Leanne for sharing this moment of discovery, being an extension of Mason’s learning. And well done on your part in effectively facilitating his acquisition of knowledge about Braille literacy".

"Hi Kim We had a gorgeous moment here with Mason yesterday that I wanted to share with you!! A wonderful moment of how extended learning embeds itself in clever little brains. Part of the braille week of homeschooling I did with Mase was a task where he had to find braille dots on 'public' items, such as ATM buttons, a bus stop sign, etc. I now know that embedding that public and community awareness of the aid of braille worked!!!!!! It was Mason's birthday last week and he received $20 in a card in the mail. The $20 note has been bouncing around on the kitchen bench since. The angle that it was on happened to highlight the 3 raised dots on the note. He was sooo excited and called out to me "Nanna, the money has braille on it!" I was SO proud of him!!!! This all stems from you posting those worksheets all those months ago hun .... I wanted you to know how much that post of yours had lead to for Mason and I xox

I then used his 'discovery' to do a maths/problem solving activity, which I today submitted to his teacher as part of this weeks home schooling (I think we are on week 21 of homeschooling now .... kill me!!!!!). I said I wonder why $20 has 3 dots? That stumped him, as we didn't study numbers lol. Then I pulled out a $50 note I had which showed 3 dots. He quickly worked out the a $5 must have one dot, a $10 must have 2 and a $100 must have 4. Then we found a $5 note and confirmed it had 1 dot. It was sooo wonderful to watch him retain the knowledge, recall it and have that awareness of the special raised dots on the notes.

A Footnote:
This morning, Mason was sitting at the bench eating his brekky (before we started yet another depressing mind numbing day of homeschooling) and he said "Nanna, I know what I want to do for a job when I grow up. I want to be a vision impaired helper and help people in the community" . My heart melted!!!! It came out of nowhere too, we were not discussing anything at all, just pops out with it. I explained what a mobility worker is (for various disabilities not just vision) and I said I will show him your FB page next week (he goes to his Dads tomorrow til Sunday), to show him what you do and let him read through your descriptive posts". xox (Quoting Leanne Davey).